


banana bread (will put the bees to sleep)

by subtlyhaught



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of past abuse, and jay is the best, cruellas an awful mother, hey hey hey this is the first time ive written jaylos rip if its out of character, trigger warning for smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 01:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16692775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtlyhaught/pseuds/subtlyhaught
Summary: Carlos smelled the smoke before he saw it, and that was enough to stop him in his tracks.





	banana bread (will put the bees to sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> for mads
> 
> i don't know what the title is either okay its 3am

As it were, Coach Jenkins trusted Carlos, which was pretty cool.

The downside to that, though, seemed to be the fact that Coach Jenkins trusted him enough to send him trekking across the tourney field after practice to store away all the practice pylons and other such tourney-esque materials. Which, yknow, would’ve been fine, if it hadn’t been for Chad Charming.

In retrospect, Carlos knew something like this was bound to happen. Auradon was great, _too_ great, and the universe always had a way to balance out great things with significantly _less_ great things. That’s just how the world went round, and it seemed it had caught up with him.

Carlos didn’t think you could get cigarettes in Auradon. Like, who _sold_ something that addicting, something that could cause such sicknesses, in the land of the supposed good and pure? It had never crossed his mind that these sorts of vices could be found in the kingdom, but he supposed if there was someone that would find a way to get them, it would be Chad.

Carlos smelled the smoke before he saw it, and that alone was enough to make him stop in his tracks.

He was behind the bleachers, having taken a shortcut to make it to the storage shed at the end of the field, when the crude smell assaulted his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose, wondering for a moment why the acrid scent seemed so familiar, when it hit him.

He froze as he came upon Chad, douchey grin stretching across his features, cigarette pressed to his lips, the epitome of asshole.

Chad didn’t see him, content to stay leaning against the bleachers, chatting up some girl Carlos couldn’t quite make out. He was dressed in usual Chad-like attire - a light blue polo shirt underneath an Auradon yellow zipper hoodie; a stark contrast to the dark greens and blacks of the girls look, an uncommon sight in the kingdom. But that didn’t really register, because Carlos was far more focused on the fastly evolving panic that was rooting him to the ground.

The only person Carlos had ever known to smoked had been his mother. The thing was - his mother didn’t just smoke. His mother used smoking as a weapon, and Carlos knew that far too well.

His arms felt hot, and he couldn’t really tell if he wanted to cry or if he couldn’t breathe - maybe both - and the bag of equipment slid from his shoulder with a thump. All he could do was watch as Chad took one last drag from the very end of the cigarette, before putting it out on the framework of the bleachers and letting it drop to the ground. He snaked an arm around the girls waist, and began leading her in the opposite direction of where Carlos was standing, not seeing him once.

You’d think hey, this was the end of it! Threat was removed from sight, life goes on!

Except Carlos couldn’t move.

He could barely breathe, in fact.

He felt simultaneously too cold and too hot. His shoulders were itchy, and his knees felt weak, hands shaking, but he couldn’t bring himself to _move._

All he could think about was his mother. Her laugh, her snide smile, her damn red car, and the cigarette she almost always had on her. The cigarette that almost always ended up being put out on Carlos’ arms.

Carlos didn’t really have time to pack for Auradon. He didn’t even really have much to bring anyway - Cruella practically only gave him enough to keep him alive and looking healthy, seeing as she loved making people think Carlos was the light of her life - but even so, everything that he could grab were things from Hell Hall. Things that had been around his mother. Things that, no matter how many times they were washed, retained the smell of cigarette smoke. It’s like they had been practically drenched in nicotine.

The second Carlos had gotten to Auradon, he figured maybe the laundromats in the dorms would be able to get the scent out - better soap, good water pressure and all. But in the end, all but two of his t-shirts had been tossed, and most of his sweaters had been gone as well (not that he had many of either in the first place, but.)

Evie knew, of course. She was the only one out of the four VKs that really asked, and was willing to listen. And when Carlos had eventually opened up to her after they had met up at the Goblin Wharf on his Isle one day, his hand clutching almost desperately at his shoulder, pained expression on his face, she was absolutely and 100% willing and ready to do something. Except, there wasn’t much _to_ do on the Isle, which made things a tad more complicated.

But in Auradon, there was. Auradon eliminated the Cruella factor from things, and instead just left them with the _Carlos has no clothes to wear_ bit. But that was an easy fix, and after recycling and rewearing outfits for about a week, Evie had prepared a brand new closet of clothes for Carlos - ones that smelled distinctly of Auradon’s laundry detergent and _not_ cigarette smoke.

And so that was that. Carlos figured he was done with it. With Cruella, with cigarettes, with lying about Cruella’s maltreatment. And yet, here they were.

Time was passing. Carlos knew as much. The sun had begun to set, it’s golden rays catching on Carlos’ white hair, and turning his dark chocolatey eyes to a warmer honey brown. Bird were chirping, the grass was dewey, the sky cloudless. It would’ve been a perfectly serene moment, if Carlos hadn’t been standing there for _two hours_ now, just trying to catch his breath.

At this point, he figured he’d be there all night, with the way things were going. His knees had locked a while ago, and he wasn’t sure he was even still blinking, so he thought _hey, maybe this is it. This is where I’ll be stuck the rest of my life._

That is, until he heard the light thump of nimble footsteps behind him.

“Christ, Carlos, there you are,” it was Jay, because _of course_ it had to be Jay. Who else.

Because sure, Evie had been the first person to ask Carlos what what happening, and she may have been the first person Carlos had told, but Jay? Jay didn’t have to ask. Jay had known perfectly well what was happening. He could read Carlos like a book, even back on the Isle - _especially_ back on the Isle.

And the Jay that had found him behind the bleachers was the same Jay that used to scale the walls of Hell Hall to check in on Carlos at night. It was the same Jay who would adjust his entire thieving schedule at the drop of a hat if something were even remotely the matter with Carlos. It was the same Jay who knew what it meant when Carlos was breathing slowly, or quickly, or not at all. So, really, it made perfect sense that it was just the person he needed that had shown up.

Oh.

The person he needed.

_Time to compartmentalize that until later._

Jay had taken a few strides around Carlos so he was standing in front of him now, and Carlos found he couldn't bring his eyes to focus on Jay. Immediately, any emotion that wasn’t pure concern vanished from Jay’s face, and he raised his hand.

“Can you blink twice for me if I can touch you?” He murmured, voice gravelly and concentrated.

Carlos tried to take a breath, tried to speak, tell Jay he was going to be fine, but really, all he could manage was the double blink Jay asked for.

The taller boy nodded, beginning to move his hands towards Carlos’ sternum. “I’m going to put my hand on your chest,” Jay said anyway, even after Carlos gave him permission. Carlos tried to nod, but ended up only holding his eyes shut.

Jay’s palm made contact with the middle of Carlos’ chest, and immediately, Carlos drew in a shuddering breath. His lungs expanded, causing his chest to press against Jay’s palm, and Carlos would almost swear he saw a grin threaten to take over Jay’s features at the action.

They stayed like this for a moment - Carlos just breathing, and Jay standing patiently - until eventually, Carlos’ knees buckled and he toppled forward.

Jay caught him because of course he did, and Carlos didn’t know if that made things better or worse. Slowly, Jay lowered them both to the ground, and Carlos almost cried out when his knee hit the ground. Not because it was painful, no, but because it felt so _real._ It was the realest thing he had felt for the past two hours, and that was a terrifying thought.

And then there was Jay, who was patient and gentle, waiting as Carlos tried to regulate his breathing. Jay was real. And that was a terrifyingly large comfort.

“There you go.” Jay hummed, sitting back on his ankles, nodding approvingly as Carlos sucked in a significantly smaller breath. “We can stay here as long as you need, yeah?”

Carlos nodded.

It took an hour for Carlos to find his voice again, and then another half an hour until he was convinced he could walk back to their dorm on his own. Jay wasn’t as convinced however, and swept Carlos into his arms the second he stood (which caused an awfully warm, glowly feeling to blossom in his gut which, yknow, was a thought for later.

There was still, however, one problem.

“Jay-”

“Don’t.”

“No, Jay, the tourney equipment.”

Jay frowned, adjusting Carlos in his arms briefly as he turned around, eyeing the back that had remained abandoned on the ground, before he shrugged. “Let Chad get it,”

And if that was the first time Carlos had laughed in the past six hours, well, that was his business.

**Author's Note:**

> @ eviesgrimhilde on tumblr


End file.
